As a musician, as a man of ideals, and as a true world citizen, Yehudi Menuhin made an extraordinary mark on his era. The Menuhin Century commemorates the 100th anniversary of his birth on 22 April 1916.

As a musician, as a man of ideals, and as a true world citizen, Yehudi Menuhin made an extraordinary mark on his era. The Menuhin Century commemorates the 100th anniversary of his birth on 22 April 1916.

As a musician, as a man of ideals, and as a true world citizen, Yehudi Menuhin made an extraordinary mark on his era. The Menuhin Century commemorates the 100th anniversary of his birth on 22 April 1916.

With inspiration drawn from the great violin masters, Ysaÿe’s Op. 27 has in turn inspired many violinists to transcend technical boundaries and claim their own position among the greats. In a career-defining recording Saeijs delivers a wholly immersive performance full of colour and flair.

Acclaimed violinist Yehudi Menuhin delivers first-rate performances of Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor and Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No.2. His stunning tone, intensity and overall virtuosity are engaging and warm. Menuhin is joined by noted conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. The set will go down as one of the finest violin performances of all time and Menuhin remains one of the most accomplished violinists of the century.

“Summer hath his joys, and Winter his delights” – these words, written by Thomas Campion (1567–1620) perfectly describe the attraction of the winter season. Although nature may be in a slumber, we people have found ways to amuse ourselves with long evenings of conversation, accompanied by music and wine, or snuggling up in front of the fireplace with a big mug of a nice, warm beverage, or with physical activities such as skiing or tobogganing. We’ve also invented a large number of holidays that we can look forward to and rely on to bring cheer into this dark and sun-less period.

After the overwhelming success of Vladimir Horowitz Live at Carnegie Hall, Sony Classical presents Vladimir Horowitz: The Unreleased Live Recordings 1966–1983. Available October 23, this 50-CD edition takes you on tour with the legendary pianist from his home town of New York to the great halls of the USA, from New Haven to Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston and beyond. This special collector’s set features 13 programs recorded at 25 solo recitals in 14 different concert halls. It comprises the complete live recordings made by Columbia Masterworks between 1966 and 1968, as well as the live recordings made by RCA Red Seal between 1975 and 1983. While a few extracts from these live recordings were selected for release as award-winning albums, the vast majority rested untouched in secure storage and has remained unreleased for more than 30 years – until today. This new edition presents Vladimir Horowitz’s musical artistry, live and unedited in state-of-the-art mastering.

There is no shortage of recordings of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but this one really is different. First of all, it is played on the viola, not on the violin – by David Aaron Carpenter. He has been described by the German newspaper Die Welt as “a new star at the forefront of violists”, by the Helsinki Times as playing “like a young god” and by Gramophone as a player of “superlative assurance and magnetic conviction”. When he made his debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in in 2007, the New York Times praised his “seductively rich sound … forceful interpretive personality and remarkable control of his instrument,” and his mentors have included such distinguished musical figures as Pinchas Zukerman, Yuri Bashmet and Christoph Eschenbach. Secondly, Vivaldi’s Baroque concertos are placed in a new light, since they are programmed alongside far more recent works inspired by the cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter: Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), written between 1965 and 1970 by Argentina’s King of Tango, Astor Piazzolla, and A Manhattan Four Seasons by the Ukrainian-American composer Alexey Shor, premiered in 2013. This CD represents the first time that the works by Vivaldi and Piazzolla have been recorded in a version for viola. Alexey Shor wrote his work – moody, mellow and immediately appealing – in his capacity as composer-in-residence with the Manhattan-based Salomé Chamber Orchestra, which David Aaron Carpenter founded with his violin-playing sister and brother, Lauren and Sean. The orchestra generally plays without a conductor and is therefore headless … hence its striking name, inspired by the biblical princess who demanded the decapitation of John the Baptist. It was founded by the Carpenter siblings in 2009 with the declared aim of achieving “a dynamic balance of novelty, tradition and hard work”. As Lauren Carpenter told the New York Times, “It’s great to try and change the face of what classical music concerts can be.” @WarnerClassics

In the summer of 2011 France’s most eminent cultural institution, the Château de Versailles, joined naïve in celebrating Antonio Vivaldi with a month of concerts, fireworks and publications – the crowning glory of our first ten years of work in restituting the massive corpus of works by this little-known italian composer to the public. The Vivaldi edition, a recording venture conceived by the italian musicologist Alberto Basso (istituto per i Beni Musicali in Piemonte) and the independent label naïve, is one of the most ambitious recording projects of the twenty-first century. its principal objective is to record the massive collection of Vivaldi autograph manuscripts preserved in the Biblioteca nazionale Universitaria in Turin.

Sergej Krylov has established himself as one of the most talented violinists of his generation regularly invited to perform in major concert halls. He appears with some of the most prestigious orchestras in the world, including Staatskapelle Dresden, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, DSO Berlin, Russian National Symphony, London Philharmonic, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, English Chamber Orchestra, Hessischer Rundfunk Frankfurt, Budapest Festival Orchestra, NHK Symphony Tokyo, Atlanta Symphony, and Copenhagen Philharmonic.